Iran hangs ‘Israeli agent’ for killing nuclear scientist

Iran has hanged a man who was convicted of killing a nuclear scientist in 2010. The physicist was murdered with a remote-controlled bomb which was attached to a motorcycle and detonated outside his home in Tehran.

­Majid Jamali Fashi, 24, was sentenced to death in August 2011 for allegedly murdering 50-year-old Tehran University professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi. The execution took place on Tuesday at Tehran's Evin prison, reports The Guardian, citing Iran's state news agency.

Last year Fashi appeared on Iranian television and confessed to the crime, claiming he had been trained abroad by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.

Officials from Iran's atomic energy organization said earlier that Mohammadi was not involved in Iran's nuclear program at the time of his murder, and a number of Western analysts support this point. However, another attack recently on an Iranian scientist seems to have reached its target. Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, a deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was killed in January by a magnetic bomb that was planted on his vehicle.

Iranian authorities have accused Israel and the United States of assassinating four Iranian scientists in order to paralyze its controversial nuclear program. Washington has categorically denied these accusations. Israel, however, remains silent.

In April Iran’s Intelligence Ministry claimed it had arrested 15 people who had conspired to assassinate one of the country’s “specialists” in a “Zionist-regime-linked” plot.